


do not go gentle into that good night

by ryanreynolds



Category: Misfits
Genre: Angst, Hurt, Hurt Nathan, Kidnapping, Season/Series 02, Spoilers, so if that's not for you - you best turn over, this is not a happy story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 17:03:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7181504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryanreynolds/pseuds/ryanreynolds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i> So, raise your glasses for Nathan Young, he who was never missed and never found</i><br/><br/>Everybody Loves Me blasts into his ears, and a knife dives into his heart. Nathan Young is lost to the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	do not go gentle into that good night

Maybe if his dad hadn't left him at IKEA, everything would be a little different. Not much different - he'd probably still be in community service and he'd probably still hate his mothers' boyfriends, but maybe he would've had a solace at his dad's. Another place, he could feel safe, and where he knew someone, he loved, would take care of him.  
And maybe everything would be very different, after all.

But things were as they were, his dad was a dick, and his mum - well, his mum was his mum, and there wasn't really anything new there. She still loved Jeremy, despite the weirdness of him running around naked, thinking himself a dog at night, and she still wouldn't let Nathan stay at home. She still smiled at him with that sad smile, like she knew something he didn't - this, most likely, being that he would never be able to return home, there had been one too many lies and some relationships cannot be mended and some things cannot be fixed, while he still had that flickering hope inside of him. That she and Jeremy would split, that he could come home and take care of her, like he used to - granted, he hadn't been the best bu he had tried. It wasn't like he had had any father figures to set the example for him, so was it really his fault?

And this was all just before that day on the roof with Rachel and with Barry - or what's his name - hadn't been able to save him, the day he fell to his death and the following days, and then that fateful day that he woke up. In his coffin that was already buried six feet under the ground and everyone had moved on with their lives - this was a fact he accepted after two days of shouting, after his throat had become sore and his voice was weak, both from the strain and from the oxygen, he slowly turned into carbon dioxide. At least his iPod still had battery - he had turned the light so low he could barely make out the song's numbers.

When they finally dug him up, when he was finally found, he had died five times. And it had been just as scary and dark every single time. The precious oxygen, a coffin that size could hold, had been used within the first two days - he had held breathing contests as to spare as much as possible and tried to breathe as little as possible - and then he died again. It wasn't very pleasant, especially because he was hungry - oh god so hungry - and his throat was so dry, that he would kill a third probation worker to just get one drop of water. He'd swear of booze, sex and drugs for the rest of his life - hell, he'd join the Amish folk and be even more Christian, or Catholic, or whatever Rachel had been, and be better and more of a prude virgin than she had been - if someone would just give him one drop of water. So he died. And came back to life, hungrily drawing in air that shouldn't have been there, and then he died again.

Not having any air was a fucking bitch. Even if you're immortal - which he was, and this was still too cool to quite fathom because holy shit, he had powers and they were way more cool than any of the others' and they were one of those, that bad guys in all movies and books had committed genocide over, and all he had to do was be struck by lightning, _fucking dicks_.

They found him, and he had air, and oh god, he could have water, he could have food. And he had _air_. Letting the others see him vulnerable, hungry and thirsty and weak, was never an option, so he pranked them, made them remember the prick he was, so their grief and happiness over seeing he wasn't dead could be overthrown by the memory of their disdain towards him. Even Kelly seemed eternally annoyed with him, although she wasn't as good to push down her happiness as the others were - or as Curtis and Alisha were; Barry was just as weird as he normally was. With that piercing stare and those blue eyes that never seemed to need to blink. Weird.

Maybe he should have let them see his vulnerable side, and they might've found the need to look for him. They might've noticed he was gone. Not that he was that gullible; they were probably relieved beyond words to find out he was gone, that they didn't need to hear his obscene words, watch his rude gestures any longer. He'd maybe expected Kelly to look for him, but maybe not; she had heard some pretty nasty shit in his thoughts, and there is after all only so much a person can take before they check out.

# ♒

So it started like this; he was lying on his little thin mattress, minding his own business in the community center - somewhat dreaming about how much more comfortable he would be, if jis mum hadn't changed locks and she hadn't asked him to stay away - and eating a stolen Snickers. 

The wind was howling outside, and if he hadn't put the volume on his iPod to the maximum, he might have heard it, and in turn heard the breaking of glass windows. He might have heard a lot, and that could have given him the precious he need to run, to run and never look back. It might have given him time to shield himself and roll out of the knife's range. But it was as it was, and with _Everybody Loves Me_ blasting into his ears, thoughts full of what could've been, Nathan Young was killed for the sixth time in two weeks. 

He didn't really have time to scream, all he could manage was a weak whine of surprise, and the pain hit him. His already wide eyes widened even more, his throat closed with a scream just on the tip of his tongue, and the pain spread from his chest like a white fire. His breath was hitched and became weaker at any passing second, and then a black hand twisted the knife and he screamed so loud. The black spots became a curtain, black as the night, and he could swear he felt a tear, if not more, roll down his cheek. The pain was unbearable, and as the dark curtain dulled every and all of his feelings, not even the crippling anxiety he had felt every other time he'd died, could stop the eternal relief, he felt when it finally subsided. And then there was only darkness, and then there was nothing. Nothing at all.

When he finally came to, he jerked forth, drawing breath like he was a drowning man that finally broke the surface, and the tears immediately sprung from his eyes. He had been killed, but looking around, he wasn't in the community center anymore so they must've known about his powers, whoever the dick that killed him was – and he was probably never gonna see his mum again, and he was going to stay here forever, dying over and over again probably, and she was going to die still hating him, and his dad was going to die still hating him. Everyone was going to die hating him.

“So you're Nathan Young? The boy who lived,” a smug voice came from behind him.

Nathan nearly jumped two meters in the air, or he would've if it wasn't for the bloody rope tying him to the most uncomfortable chair in human existence.

“Really, you dickhead? You kill me and make a fucking Harry Potter reference? What the fuck, you fucking psy-” More words would have left his mouth, like pretty much all the nicknames he had thrown Barry's way, just with actual conviction behind the words this time.

An explosion of pain hit the side of his head, and he yelped out. As the pain spiked, he felt something warm roll down into his ear. With the world tilting from side to side, and black spots dancing over his eyes and a pending urge to just throw his guts up – he would never hear the end of it if the others heard about it – a man with black gloves stepped in front of him. He didn't recognize him, and even if he did know him, the hit to his head inevitably fucked something up, up there. Also, the sunglasses might have had something to do with it. Not being able to see his eyes was an important factor in not being able to identify him.

“Don't talk to me like that, you little prick.” The voice was silky, with barely hidden rage hiding behind the honeyed voice.

“What the fuck do you even want from me, freaky bitch? My friends will be here in, like two hours or so and they'll beat you to shit with their awesome powers, though they're not as good as mine, and you'll be sorry for putting even one finger on these glorious curls, fucking pervert.”

The man just smiled at him, pitiful even, _what the fuck are you playing, old man?_ “they won't come, and you know why? Because you're universally despised, even so much your own mother couldn't stand looking at me, and don't even get me started on your dad.”

Nathan glared at him with hopefully the most murderous stare he could muster, and hopefully it signaled to the freak, that it was wisest to shut up and let him the fuck go.

“Like, really, the only one who didn't want to slap you within the first two minutes of your company had to be that pedophile at IKEA, right?”

For a few seconds, he just stared at the asshat, and then it was like it all caught up with him, and time became unfrozen again. “What the fuck do you even know about that pedophile? I have never told anyone about him, aside from my mum who obviously didn't believe – like not even my dick to a father knows about the Meatballs Pedo, so how the fuck come you, a fucking prick that killed my within those first two minutes you're talking about, know about that?”

The man smiled again, but this time it seemed so cold and cruel, almost animal like. And everything froze inside of Nathan. Once more his eyes teared up and he cursed every living god and blinked them away as fast as he could. Oh god, oh god, oh god _oh god_. Only once had he seen this smile before and that was in the parking lot of IKEA when an old man with the biggest bear he had ever seen, came up to him and offered him some food. _Oh god_.

“Please, don't” he croaked shakily and on the verge to cry, even though he tried so hard to keep it in. Oh god. This time there weren't a dad who miraculously came back in time to prevent Nathan in being scarred for life with PTSD and suicidal thoughts and all that weird shit, that came with being raped.

The man shook his head, the smile still firmly plastered on his ridiculous and ugly face, “I'm not going to rape you, you're too much of dick for that – though maybe later. For now, though, I'll probably just kill you so many times that your little immortality thing might expire. Do you know if it lasts forever? If it doesn't, then fine, bye-bye to you, no one will miss you, and if it does, then you are gonna have one hell of a trauma if anyone ever finds you.”

The man spared one look at him before turning away, laughing with coldness that gave him chills all the way down his spike, “I don't think so, though, so don't wait for them. It'll just make you go mad faster.”

Nathan had always been clever – his mum had always gotten compliments on how bright a boy he was, he'd do great things one day – and even if he hadn't been, he should've anticipated the mindblowing blow, that hit his cheek with a force stronger than he thought, the human hand could process. He croaked out a scream that was cut in half by a hit to his stomach. All air left his body and he curled into himself. 

The beating never stopped and even when the dark finally overwhelmed him, it was like he could feel every blow rain over his body, over and over again. The world was dark and full of pain. The world was dark and full of pain, and he was completely alone with his screams and tears.

# ♒

He soon figured out the system; every fifth day he was beat to death with bare hands, then it was water boarding, then it was electrocution, then it was knives that cut every inch of his body, then it was beating with help in the form of bats and knuckle dusters, and then everything happened all over again.

Nathan had awhile ago learned that it was best to shut up to not endure even more pain, and so he, of course, shouted even louder. Came up with even more brass nicknames for the fucking bastard that held him prison.

“ _Sick bastard-fucker_ ”  
“ _Peach fucker-asshole_ ”  
“ _Psychotic pedophile_ ”

And with every insult, the man's smile turned a little colder and the evil glint in his eye shone a little brighter. And the pain doubled, tripled, quadrupled, and he couldn't breath, and he couldn't die, and he couldn't enter some kind of state where the pain subsided and he just let it happen. He wasn't like those freaky dudes from television and other psychotic torture stories, where they just entered some kind of safe haven, where they felt the pain but they didn't _feel_ it like that. Nathan felt everything, every blow, every cut, every bubble of oxygen leaving his lungs and every drop of blood that trickled out of the thousands of cuts.

After who knows how many days, the man stopped. He stopped and smiled at Nathan, and he could honestly cry at the sight. He knew that this freak had killed him so many times that he stopped counting at least hundred deaths away, but he also hadn't been able to breath for more than three seconds before another life threatening blow had been delivered and he was breathless and on the verge of dying all over again. For the first time in probably years, he could breath. Really breath.

“Do you know how many days it has been?”

Nathan spit out some blood, “like, 4. Time's slow and you're a boring, psycho killer.”

“You're a fucking pain in the ass, douchebag. And yes, you're right, it has only been 4 days,” and Nathan was about to call him out on the bullshit, when the man grinned, “times 5. Looks like you either have the dumbest friends ever who has no idea where to look – although it is hard to find, I'll grant them that – or they simply just don't care about you.”

Nathan narrowed his eyes.

“And since there has been round about zero reports of a missing boy with black curls and shittiest personality ever, I'd guess the latter. What about you?”

“You haven't met my friends, they're practically braindead. Without me, they'd be lost, so they are lost right now. They probably just sit around or walk around the city, aimlessly yelling my name. They'll come. Fuckhead.”

The man shook his head, “fucking hell, I can't wait to slice your throat.”

# ♒

Somewhere in his head, he could hear voices. Some of them were loud, some were quiet; each one of them seemed equally important, though.  
_Wait, wait. I can't listen to you all at the same time. Just wait_  
Somewhere in his head, he could hear screaming. They were all too loud and he couldn't hear what they were screaming. It was like they all tried to warn him. Maybe it was his mum, telling him to go to school. Maybe it was his dad, telling him to go to hell, _you little shit_. Or it could be one of his friends; yelling at him to stop being silly, of course he could crash at their place. _We're mates, mate. I'll always try to help you out_

He didn't exactly know why, but that sentence made him want to cry – although it was ridiculous, he never cried. It was like, some people were born with a high intelligence quotient, and he was born with the ability to never cry. He was just one of those people, who always seemed to think they were better because they never cried like pussies.

Somewhere the voices seemed to quiet down, and he could even make out the words. The voice seemed familiar, though he couldn't really locate it.

 _That makes it even worse, you sick bastard_  
_He's trying to kiss me!_  
_You don't want to hear about my anus?_  
_You buried me alive, you dicks!_  
_You should've seen your faces, classic!_  
_Okay, so my mum opens the door and she's like_ 'aaaaargh' _and I'm like_ 'I'm immortal!'  
_We need to send a message, let him know he can't fuck with us._

Was that him? He wasn't even sure, it seemed like it could be him. Not the him, he was now of course, a him that had self respect and that somewhat believed his mum loved him, deep down under all the baggage he had put on that love over the years. A him that had a little faith in his friends would come looking for him; a him that was somewhat happy and almost with no scars in his heart compared to now. Oh, what he wouldn't do to make everything different.

Before he could really dwell on him hearing himself, and where he was – what kind of shit revelation was this even? The one where he realized that no, no one cared about him, like, at all? – and if all of this, instead of the usual darkness, meant there really had been an expiration for his A-list superpower, immortality, which sucked major balls – he was ripped from the safe haven, his mind had created for him, and drawn back into the reality wherein he would die. Again and again and again and again and again and again.

# ♒

“Did you have a nice sleep, asshole?”

“Yeah, it was real pleasant when I didn't have to look at your ugly face, you bastard,” he croaked back in reply.

There was silence for a few moments, before the man pushed out a chair. “Haven't you wondered why you're here? Of all you people with extraordinary powers, why are you, the biggest prick of them all, here?”

Nathan shook his head, and a weak laughter slipped his cracked lips, “because you can't control the others' powers, dick. It doesn't take a genius to figure that one out; one can turn back time and avoid even getting caught, the other can turn invisible and in turn escape your dirty little fingers, another can read your creepy thoughts and the last can turn you into a sexually frustrated man with rape tendencies. Plus, I have immortality, and it only takes one look at the Harry Potter books to figure out where you're going with that one.”

“You think, I want to steal that little power of yours? Oh no, my naïve boy, I want what every other basic bad guy wants,” one side of his mouth curled up in a cruel smirk, “revenge.”

Oh. _Oh_. Of course, he wants revenge, He's not smart enough to steal his powers, and he's too cruel for experimentation to be his goal.

“Then why am I here?” Suddenly he felt so tired, so life weary. Like ten years had been sucked out of him; all the torture had seemed to have some kind of purpose, and now all his suffering just seemed pointless. The nightmares that was just waiting for him to close his eyes seemed like taunting of the worst kind. He was here to die. Die every single day for something they had all done; not that he wished that it was one of the others that died, oh no, but the least they could do was notice him going missing. _Dickheads_. 

“Because you're special – wait no, you're not.”, the man shook his head, like he couldn't believe Nathan's stupidity, which he probably couldn't, “you were the easiest one to get to, lying all unprotected in the community center. Which is just another proof of you being hated by all and everyone, you know. Pathetic waste of space.”

“What did we do to you?” Nathan asked, his voice monotone and dry, “like, we have done a lot of shit, so you have to be specific.”

Maybe he should just have kept his mouth quiet, that would be probably have been the safest way out. Which was maybe why he didn't. The man went completely still and stared at him with a fury and fire that could only be described like the most fierce hatred, anyone has ever experienced. It was worse than their first probation worker.

“You killed my sister!”, he screamed with a penetrating voice, that made him want to cover his ears and never let go. “I am going to kill you, and I am going to find a way to make it last, you fucking dickhead. You are done, you hear me? You are fucking done, dead and unloved, freak bitch!”

If Nathan had had the energy, he might have congratulated the psycho on his creative nicknames – they're almost better than his own – and maybe he'd also ask who this sister was, but all he could muster was a gruff whisper: “I'm sorry.”

And then, like that fateful night with his ears blasted half deaf by _Everybody Loves Me_ , ironic as it was, a knife duck into his chest. This time he was quite sure he had time to scream, and he was quite sure he screamed even after the darkness had engulfed him and dragged him under.

# ♒

Once, when he was younger and everything hadn't gone to shit, and he still had that fantasy of one day being a part of a fully functional, loving family, his mother would read him bedtime stories. There were all the classics; The Little Mermaid, Hans and Grethel, Rapunzel and such. But the best was when he was sick, when he lay in his bed with a sweating forehead and glassy eyes. At such times, his mum would read him poems, at first as a mean to lull him to sleep and after that because he kept begging for more.

His favourite had always been by Dylan Thomas. _Do not go gentle into that good night_. His mum would always smile so fondly at him when he requested it, and if nothing else, that was a big reason to keep making her read it.

Oh god, what he wouldn't do to see her smile again. She'd thought, he'd had a place to stay, when he died, and he hadn't, and she'd been freaked out – her only son was dead and he'd been homeless at the same time. And then he wasn't, and now he was again – a hundred times over, and this time it was probably for good.

He remembered the times, he had looked into the kitchen, the dining room and sometimes the bed room, to catch a glint of his mother's happiness without him. And what a paradise his eyes had beheld, his mother had none of the wrinkles, she had when she looked at him, and there was no permanent frown between her eyebrows. She seemed so relaxed without him there to drag her down with his own problems; without his dad to be a complete dick and leave him at some monster big mall where all the names were in Swedish and therefore could not be pronounced.

And Nathan may have been a prick but even he, even he, could not make himself stand in the way of her happiness. Not his mother's, because she meant the world to him and she had shone the strongest light in his dark world, and he would never cause her misery. He loved her so much and maybe, that creepy granny - _Ruth_ , a voice crept in – had been right, maybe he wouldn't allow her to share her love, because he knew he'd chosen the short straw. Just like Barry, when he and Curtis, in what seemed like two lifetimes ago, had delegated who took who of the girls – or he had, Curtis just seemed to have shaken his head at him and rolled his eyes too much for it to be healthy.

Maybe it was best for the others, for him to be kidnapped, to be killed; to take the pain for all of them. God knows, they couldn't survive this; their B-list superpowers aside, they wouldn't survive mentally. Not that he was, but at least he deserved it. He deserved it after spoiling his mother's happiness for years, also before her boyfriends for simply being such a difficult kid, for killing the probation workers – or played a part in their deaths, for letting his brother die – right in front of him, and he couldn't do anything. He had seen his own brother explode in front of him. And he had done nothing. He was a murderer and he deserved these deaths more than any of the others, even panty-sniffer-Barry who probably wasn't a panty sniffer. And who really was named Simon. _I'm sorry_.

He didn't deserve to live, and as long as the others were safe, he would do this a thousand times over. _So, raise your glasses for Nathan Young, he who was never missed and never found_.

God, he was so sorry for so many things. If he could, he'd probably even say sorry to his dad. The prick didn't deserve it, but he also didn't deserve to have both his sons killed, no matter what a shitty father he had been to them, within a couple of months. No man could survive that, and he'd never wished for death upon his father. Not since he was 12, anyways.

It wasn't because he gave up. There was just nothing to do; if the man wasn't going to kill him every hour for the rest of his miserable life, which would be about forty years more – or longer, if science proved efficient in the upcoming years – then he was probably gonna figure out a way to make Nathan brain-dead, so it didn't matter if he was immortal because his bran would be like scrambled eggs. 

_Do not go gentle into that good night, Nathan._

He tried to shake his head. _But mum, I'm so tired._

_Do not go gentle into that good night, Nathan._

Again, he tried to protest, _I do not deserve this, mum._

_**Do not go gentle into that good night, Nathan.** _

# ♒

At some point, he had been revived. At some point, the luxury of eternal darkness had been taken from him, and the pain came back. The white hot pain, that flared up and scorched his very soul, had returned, and it was never going away. The man continued to scream at him, about his sister, his beautiful sister who deserved so much better than to end her life at the hands of a group of freaks, and about what a waste of space, of air, Nathan was. How no one was going to safe him, and how no one loved him. He didn't really pay attention, the pain was melting his brain away. He agreed, though, and hoped his mum was finally happy. _So, raise your glasses for Nathan Young, he who was never missed and never found_.

And then the pain ended, and he embraced the darkness, drew it as close as it could get and never let go. Somewhere voices were screaming.

“We're gonna safe you, Nathan.”

“Hang on, you prick!”

“Oh my god, is he gonna survive?”

“Jesus fucking Christ, is that fucking knife in his fucking chest?”

“Look at his body, Curtis, be careful with him!”

“God, he looks awful, what did you do to him, you freak?!”

“Two weeks , and he looks worse than when he was dead.”

But voices meant that he was alive, and being alive meant another round of never-ending pain, and so Nathan dug even deeper into the darkness to never return to the lands of living.

# ♒

He didn't want to wake up. He had been prepared to just stay in the darkness and once for all, die. Die like a normal person, and not the freak he was. For not the first time since that insane, poor man kidnapped him, he wished that he got a bullshit power like Kelly had gotten. That he could talk to animals or even just a random power, like that weirdo Jeremy. Anything but this bullshit power that always dragged him back from the world of the dead, from peace and serenity, to the land of the living, to pain and suffering. Oh, how he wished there had been a fucking expiration for that fucking power, he had.

But he yet, after all his effort to stay in the dark paradise, he woke up. He woke up, gasping greedily for air, and was on the verge of a breakdown. He was gonna get killed again, he was gonna get hurt, he was gonna feel his skin being peeled of with a meat knife, he was going to feel the prick of a million needles when he was electrocuted, he was going-

“Nathan! Nathan, stop, you're safe, you're safe-”, a voice screamed to him but he couldn't muster the energy to obey it. His breathing was hitched and his heart beat a thousand miles per second, he was going to die.

A hand yanked his chin up and he looked into the eyes of Kelly, Kelly with her bad make-up and kilogram of eyeliner around her eyes, and he stared at her. Had she been captured as well? Oh god, he was going to see another friend die, oh god.

“You're safe.”

Her voice was honeyed and and firm, and when she spoke, he could feel a rising urge to cry for all eternity. They had found him, they found him, they had found him, they had found him. And the tears began to fall and sobs broke through his dry lips, and he leaned into her touch when she dragged him into a soul-crushing hug, and just held him. Held until his sobs became hitched whispers, and the tear tracks dried on his cheeks.

“You're safe,” she repeated, this time with even more force.

He opened his eyes and stared behind her, at the other three lurking at an appropriate distance behind them, occasionally sneaking stares at them. He noticed how Curtis alternated between staring at the wall, like he could crush it with his mind, and at Nathan, like he could break at any second ( _oh, he was already broken, if only they knew how much_ ). He noticed how Barry and Alisha held hands, and he wondered when that had happened, and if that was what they were all worried about for the first weeks, he had been gone. He noticed how Alisha never took her eyes of Barry, and how Barry held her hand like he was a drowning man, and her grip was the only thing tethering him to this world, to the surface and thereby to air. Oh, if only Nathan had someone like that, if only he, with just one look at someone, could believe the world was a good place, that they were going to be alright and that the world was a good place. But he hadn't and he couldn't, and the world was the darkest place of all, and even death was a much more merciful place than this hell, he was now doomed to live in forever, till the end of time.

He released his death grip on Kelly, and drew back with as much force as he could muster, and she quickly let him go with a concerned glint in her eye. She probably tried to read his mind, but he hadn't thought anything in a long time, anything other than; _So, raise your glasses for Nathan Young, he who was never missed and never found_. And if she heard that, he didn't care. He wasn't Nathan Young, for that boy was lost, abandoned by all he held dear, and had be slaughtered more times than he could count. No, he wasn't Nathan Young, and never would be again. Nathan Young had been an almost carefree person who spoke his mind; he, this Nathan, was anything but. Nathan Young had been brave, somewhat, and he had put his friends before himself, had been happy that he was the one kidnapped and the others were safe and content. Nathan Young had cried three times in his life, and he had let people see it even fewer times. He, himself, wasn't that strong. Who cared if they finally saved him? Nathan Young was dead. 

_So, raise your glasses for Nathan Young, he who was never missed and never found_.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading :) I'm thinking of making this into a two-shots featuring a maybe-recovery and the rest of the gang's thoughts, so if you're interested in that - comment below!
> 
> Also, you can always come cry about Nathan Young with me @ henrycaevill.tumblr.com - or if you wanna participate in the denial of 2x07.


End file.
